oday, I finished readin Robert Ludlum’s "The Janson Directive". If you check out Fahim’s blog at , he talks about this book and the problems he has with it. Now that I’ve read it, I can see his point.
While it’s an entertaining read, I can see where the image that’s painted is biased against Muslims, painting them as fanatics, or at least painting the fanatics as Muslim, or something like that. Perhaps I’m more sensitive because I’m married to a Muslim and I know that he’s nothing at all like the Muslim in this book? Perhaps it really is that biased. Perhaps I’m not in a position to be objective about this right now. Whatever.
One of the book’s shortcomings is that it’s formulaic. I find most of Ludlum’s books – the ones I’ve read – to all be based on a large conspiracy from world leaders, or those who control world leaders – to kill a leading agent because of some kind of misunderstanding. Well, this is gross generalization, and Ludlum fans will, no doubt, take exception to this. Go ahead. I’m not a Ludlum fan and make no claims. It’s all action, next to no character development, and it bores me. I don’t know guns or conspiracies of that nature, and he introduces so many characters that I get bored reading the back story of each character he introduces because I know that I’ll forget who they are and how they fit in in another five minutes. Too many characters make for a confusing book.
I also remember one Ludlum book – and I’m fairly certain it was Ludlum – that had so much profanity on its pages that it made me angry. I ended up taking a black felt pen and crossed out every foul word I came across – for about twenty or so pages – because I wanted to see just how bad the foul language was. I ended up tossing the book before I finished it, it bothered me that much.
I read (in its entirety) Marion Zimmer Bradley’s first darkover novel, "Darkover Landfall" after I finished Ludlum’s book. This is the first book by this author I’ve ever read. I’m not overly a fantasy fan – I’m much more a scifi kinda gal. Favorite authors include David Brin, Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey, Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Ben Bova. I’ve read some fantasy, but never really got hugely into it. Mostly, I’d read it when I was bored and had nothing better to read.
This book, on the other hand, I enjoyed immensely. Not a long book, but definitely an entertaining read.
After I finished that one, I started on another of hers, "Hawkmistress".
And there goes my complicated and stress filled day.
I positively drip with sarcasm.
